Researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory report a new path to study electron transfer dynamics by coupling single-molecule microscopy with an electrochemical instrument—a potentiostat. This enables them to better understand electron transfer reactions, which in turn could lead to understanding reactions common to biofuel production and solar energy conversion.

Acknowledgments: The work was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Basic Energy Sciences, and part of the research was performed in the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory, a national scientific user facility sponsored by DOE's Office of Biological and Environmental Research and located at PNNL.